


transition

by coppertears



Series: at the waning of the moon [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Transformation, Wolf!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coppertears/pseuds/coppertears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he becomes a wolf just before the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	transition

  
**transition**  
kyungsoo-centric  
pg-13  
he becomes a wolf just before the war.

kyungsoo is 19 summers old when his irises flash golden in the light of the crescent moon. for three seasons he's cloaked himself in shadows, trying not to resent how everyone's gone through the newborns' rite of passage on their 16th season except for him. howling at the stars and prowling the woods won't bring you any closer to being a wolf when your body's not yet ready for the pain of transformation, and kyungsoo keeps his head down but he can hear the whispers of _useless mutt_ that diffuse into the wind when they think he's not listening. he's the one left behind, a member of the clan who is forced to linger on the edges of the gatherings and told to stay put when the pack goes out to hunt.

kyungsoo wonders what it's like to be a part of thoughts intertwined to the point that each consciousness overlaps the other, until the voices become one entity and a single scream is diluted into an echo in the network of minds. he wonder what it's like to become so attuned to the rustling of the leaves and the scent of the earth rising from the ground, to become one with the intrinsic complexities of the wild.

so when his eyes turn, something surges in his chest -- something like an unbridled flame that burns long through the night.

his body screams as its structure changes to accommodate the wolf-spirit breaking through, and kyungsoo thinks he now understands why the turning of the eyes is so significant. because that ring of gold is a link, no matter how fragile, to the wolf's human side -- it is an indication of a soul insinuating itself into the spaces not taken up entirely by the wolf.

and soon he realizes how crucial it is, because turning into an animal doesn't mean you simply acquire fur and claws and fierceness; sometimes it means you have to let go of everything you are and everything you've been -- it means that there is a shift in your perception of the world, that when you become another creature you cut off the clinging threads of your past. and maybe the light of the moon seeps into your veins and manipulates the tides of your blood, until your essence is made up of wanderlust and blood thirst, and a single step towards what you mark as your territory can become a threat to your existence.

that is what kyungsoo learns from his father's daily reminders, and as the symbol of his pack is seared into his back, he wonders how he's supposed to hold on to his human side. how does he remember that tucked beneath his rib cage is a soft-spoken, gentle boy who retreats from fights and dissolves into the darkness? how does he keep that little lost boy in a reality where there is no room for weakness?

every night kyungsoo closes his eyes and he lingers in the crevices of his memories, trying to go through them all before he begins to forget -- before he begins to lose his humanity in the ceaseless phases of the mad moon. he's chasing after every vignette now, looking for pieces of himself scattered in the surroundings, and he thinks that it's just so hard to gather up shards of glass when they've been crushed into dust so many years ago. he wishes he can put them in a jar where they'll be preserved, but memories wither even when there is no air, and kyungsoo would rather have them while they're still vivid than continue to have them while they fall to nothing before his very eyes. his helplessness will only destroy him.

 

 

 

 

on the third quarter moon, kyungsoo thinks that something shatters within him. there are sparks racing along every fiber in his body, and it's like he's being consumed whole. he has white-hot glimpses of a torture that's so blinding and _real_ , and kyungsoo tries to think of the reasons why beating hearts melt away the seconds until time is nothing more but ashes. and there is a feeling so suspiciously similar to fear that comes to life in the corners of his mind, and as kyungsoo brushes away the cobwebs of his thoughts, he tries to burrow into the sheets of his bed and create a hole where he'll fall through to the core of the earth.

maybe there is comfort hiding in the plaster of his house's walls, but kyungsoo doesn't think it'll rush to him anytime soon.

he bites down on his lip and swallows the shriek that's scratching its way out against the walls of his throat, and he wants to peel off his epidermis so that the pain can maybe escape into the night air. he almost doesn't notice the creak of the door opening, and even when a figure looms over him, kyungsoo can't quite figure out if it's a friend or a foe. in this red fog they're all the same to him. but then handcuffs are snapped shut around his wrists, and he's bound before he can even think of escape.

if he backtracks to a time when the negatives of the world are still set in the tones of antiquity, kyungsoo can remember his mother telling him that a true wolf is imprisoned by silver, no matter what shape or form the metal takes. and it's his own nature that tells him there is silver lining these handcuffs -- maybe just a tiny sliver, but it's more than enough to eke out a whimper from his lips.

he's brought to a warehouse where there are around 15 cages, and in almost each one there is a newborn wolf. kyungsoo tries to think of anything else his father has said about the imminent transformation, but all that comes to mind is a tradition wherein the newborns are set free to explore the woods on the night of the waning gibbous moon. he's thrown into a cage and kyungsoo recoils into a ball, because the bars and the lock are coated in silver and there's nowhere he can run to.

"are you scared?" a voice says from the cage beside his, and kyungsoo turns his head to see sehun, the youngest of the pack. there is something in the way that sehun's words seem to shiver in the silence between them that makes kyungsoo nod his head, even when he feels he should have said no. he shouldn't be scared when he's been waiting for such a long time.

sehun puffs out a breath that vanishes in the cold. "i'm scared, too."

and kyungsoo thinks that maybe there are years separating them but there's no lack of understanding, and in this sea of golden eyes sehun is probably the only one who's honest enough to admit his own insecurities. but sometimes uncertainty taints people in a way that makes them hide behind lies, and kyungsoo can't blame them.

when the clock strikes midnight it feels like the ocean is turning him inside out, and all around him he can hear low growls and high keening. everyone is curled up within their cages, everyone can feel the same pain, and there is a moment of clarity before everything _connects_. kyungsoo gasps as thoughts bleed into each other and he's bombarded by suffering all at once, and right then he feels like he's holding the world in his palm. they are one now -- one pack, one mind, one thought.

as the fingers of dawn creep through the windows, kyungsoo swears he can feel his soul clamber out of his body and hobble through the bars.

he wonders if it will come back.

 

 

 

 

when they are set free to roam the woods, kyungsoo ignores the _why_ that burns in his mind. they do it naked, and everyone's confused as to why the handcuffs have been taken off, and they're let out of the cages when the clock chimes ten times.

kyungsoo is on the forest floor before he even realizes that there is hair sprouting out of his body, that there are bones lengthening past the boundaries of his human form. his howl is whipped away by the racing wind, and in a puddle of water he thinks he sees a black snout form.

then he is lost in the cacophony of thoughts merging, and kyungsoo doesn't think anymore. he has no thoughts, only instincts and reflexes ingrained into his body, and he abandons himself so easily to what his nature demands of him.

he wakes up in the morning with bruises on his legs and scratches all over his body. and when kyungsoo looks at sehun he sees a reflection of himself in the younger wolf's golden eyes, and what he sees is the portrait of a wolf caught in the transition to being a man again.

there is blood on his mouth and on his hands, but these are places where he has no wounds. kyungsoo tastes the metallic tang of life on his tongue, and he tries not to think of what he must have done.

in time he knows there will be more things that he will have to forget.

 

 

 

 

kyungsoo finally gets to join the pack gathering around the bonfire on the night that the full moon rises. across the flames he sees the alpha, joonmyun -- and joonmyun is so white, so pure, that kyungsoo finds it hard to imagine how he can have fur as black as oblivion.

joonmyun's eyes glow red, and kyungsoo knows that the gold spun through his own eyes can only last for so long. in this pack you fight for dominance, and to be able to fight you need to shed off your humanity. kyungsoo thinks that there is maybe a glimmer of gold in the red of joonmyun's eyes, but joonmyun is an alpha and he's long since let go of his soul to become the leader of this pack.

in the moonlight, approximately a hundred humans step out of their clothes and into the fur of their wolf forms rippling over their bodies.

and their thoughts are one, and kyungsoo can hear a buzzing in his mind. then joonmyun speaks in the confines of their mental connection:

_tonight the pack who comes from a land with a different sky has overstepped the territorial limits. their leader refuses to back down, and i cannot allow them to take over._

tonight we are at war.

 

 

 

 

his soul flickers through his thoughts for a second. how sad, kyungsoo thinks -- how sad that on the night he truly becomes a part of the pack, he sees death winking at him from the other side of the woods.

and then snowy-white wolves emerge from the trees and his soul flees, and all kyungsoo can feel is his survival instinct eating him up from the inside.

he wonders how long it takes to run to the end of the world.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
